SSHRC

Apr 28

Keeping Ontario on the map! Exploring our transforming landscapes online

Guest blog by Kara Handren, Metadata Librarian, Scholars Portal/OCUL

Map libraries are wonderful places, whose collections support patrons in their research, education, work and private lives. However, given the quantity of maps produced during any given period, libraries often have to make decisions to preserve only those maps that are of local relevance and significance, leaving their collections incomplete. The Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) has filled in the gaps for early topographic maps of Ontario, by bringing together over 1000 maps that had previously existed across dozens of institutions. This shared digital collection has been made available online just in time for Canada’s 150th birthday!

The collection is the result of a province-wide collaboration led by the OCUL Geo Community to inventory, digitize, georeference, and provide access to these maps. It includes...

Read more »

Apr 28

Indigenous ways of knowing and the academy: Part 2 of 2

Guest blog by Aaron Franks, Mitacs-SSHRC Visiting Fellow in Indigenous Research and Reconciliation

Read Indigenous ways of knowing and the academy: Part 1 of 2

On April 26 I published a guest post on this Federation blog on Indigenous ways of knowing and the academy. Here I want to share more details of a specific gathering at Congress 2017 that will be hosted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) (May 30 – check the program!) which SSHRC hopes will help strengthen the autonomy and standing of diverse Indigenous knowledge systems in the contemporary academy.  

Many of you reading will recognize that this effort, like so much about...

Read more »

Apr 26

Indigenous ways of knowing and the academy: Part 1 of 2

Guest blog by Aaron Franks, Mitacs-SSHRC Visiting Fellow in Indigenous Research and Reconciliation

Read Indigenous ways of knowing and the academy: Part 2 of 2

I had the privilege of attending a conference marking the 20th anniversary of the release of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People (RCAP, 1996) last November. One of the participants at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) session on research and reconciliation expressed concern about the phrase “Indigenous ways of knowing.” Why single out “Indigenous,” and why qualify human logic and comprehension with the squishy phrase “ways of knowing”? This person had spent many years thinking through these issues, working hard to improve opportunities for Indigenous peoples, but I was...

Read more »

Apr 7

L’avenir de la recherche au Canada

Fernand Gervais, Administrateur, enseignement et apprentissage, Fédération des sciences humaines

Vous avez peut-être entendu parler de l’initiative récente de l’Association canadienne des études supérieures (ACES) et du Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines (CRSH) qui inviteront 20 étudiants de divers établissements universitaires pour discuter de l’avenir de la recherche au Canada. Ce projet fait partie de l’initiative Imaginer l’avenir du Canada.

C’est à mon sens une excellente idée. Les séances de rencontre permettront aux participants d’exposer leurs idées sur les grands défis de demain, et d’exprimer les besoins de la société en rapport avec le développement de la recherche. Partir du point de vue de ceux et celles qui en seront les principaux acteurs dans le futur au Canada est...

Read more »

Oct 22

Watch the new Imagining Canada’s Future videos by the SSHRC Regional Panel of the National Capital Region & Southern Ontario

As part of SSHRC’s Imagining Canada’s Future project, the SSHRC Regional Panel of the National Capital Region and Southern Ontario has released a series of videos highlighting key research in the social sciences and humanities. The panel members, which include the University of Ottawa, Carleton University, Queen’s University, Royal Military College of Canada, Saint-Paul University and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, created videos reflecting each of their research strengths and strategic areas of interest in the social sciences and humanities to demonstrate how research in these areas can help solve the future challenges for Canada in a globalized context.

Following a nation-wide consultation period in 2011, the...

Read more »

Feb 22

Engage 2010: The engaged university - embracing change

Gisèle Yasmeen, Vice President Partnerships, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Guest Contributor

Surrounded by the pageantry of Church House – a beautiful historical building which is now a conference facility in the courtyard behind Westminster Abbey – approximately 250 researchers from across disciplines, community partners, funding agencies and international participants gathered to discuss the whys, wherefores and best practices of public engagement with respect to research from Dec. 7-8.

Engage 2010 was organized by the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement, which is an initiative of the Higher Education Funding Council of England, an arm’s length agency that funds post-secondary institutions in England with similar agencies in place for the rest of the UK. The NCCPE has produced a manifesto on public engagement, to which several institutions have adhered as well as identifying “beacons” of public engagement in...

Read more »

Mar 23

Canadian Economics Association responds to SSHRC's program changes

James Brander, President, and Michael Veall, Vice-President On behalf of the Executive Council of the Canadian Economics Association
Guest Contributors

We have reviewed the proposed changes described in the “Briefing on SSHRC’s Renewed Program Architecture” of March 2010. We applaud the SSHRC for seeking to assess and improve its procedures and we recognize that many of the proposed changes will be helpful to the research process. However, we would like to express our concern about two proposed changes.

1.  Research Record. Section V on “Research Grants” indicates an intention to reduce the weight placed on the “capability” of the applicant to 20%. The other...

Read more »